'Tis the season for celebrating Hip-Hop’s longevity and excellence from every vantage point of the culture we’ve seen blossom from a burgeoning niche, peeking out of the Bat Cave of mainstream society, to an unapologetic force, continually dunking on any remaining haters still trying to stop the reign. 

Last Thursday (September 7) at the Colburn School next to the Basquiat King Pleasure Exhibition in downtown Los Angeles, Citi and The Jean-Michel Basquait Estate put together Beat Bop: A panel, hosted by Ari Melber and featuring Doug E. Fresh, Yo-Yo and Rapsody, that focused on Hip-Hop’s inexorable ties to art and to the late, great Basquiat himself. 

Among the many incredible stories from the evening was a revelation by Doug E. Fresh that Jay-Z, at the behest of Big Daddy Kane, actually brought a copy of the album that would become Reasonable Doubt, over to Doug’s house to get his honest opinion. 

“Jay-Z brought by the tape, the cassette tape of ‘Reasonable Doubt’ and he sat in my house, he turned the chair around, and he said ‘Doug, tell me the truth, do you think this is gonna pop?’” Doug remembered. “I played it and I went through every record and I said, ‘Yeah, this is something new. You’re getting ready to do something with this.’ He said, ‘You sure? You really sure?’ I said, 'Yeah.'"

Like Basquiat himself, Hov was never known to conform to the procedural suppositions of what breaking into the industry looked like. “[JAY-Z] didn’t come from the traditional label. He put together some money with his boys and they let it out themselves. Cause the label didn’t believe in what he had,” noted Doug. “He came to my house with Big Daddy Kane. We was in there. Kane was waiting outside.”

In a full circle moment, the beatbox virtuoso recently ran into the “Hard Knock Life” MC and the two reminisced on that meeting from nearly 30 years ago, and spoke on how the game has changed since then.  

“Not too long ago, around Grammy time, I’d seen him at the [Beyonce] show and he said, ‘I don’t know if I like Hip-Hop like I used to. It seems like it’s something different about it,’” said Doug. “I said to him, ‘you remember that time when you came by and that tape was there?’ He said ‘That’s what I’m talking about, what’s missing?’ What’s missing in it is people being honest and taking a chance, or taking responsibility in what you say. When you take responsibility you have the ability to respond.” 

The World’s Greatest Entertainer also recalled a time long before Jay stopped by, when his friend Biz Markie came over to get his opinion on a song that many people said Biz should shelve. 

"Biz kept stressing me to [let him come to the house]. He came to the house, he said, ‘Yo, I’ma play this joint. You tell me how you like it. Be honest with me. I know you’re gonna tell the truth,’” recalled Doug. “He played it and when he started [singing] ‘you, you got…’ I started laughing so hard. I’m telling you, I left out of my house. I was crying, and he was sitting there [straight faced] and he was like, ‘So what you think?’ I said, ‘Biz, there’s no possible way you don’t let that out. You gotta let that out.’ He said, ‘you think so, right? You think so? It’s hot ain’t it?’”

“The Show” MC specifically remembered Biz’s confidence in the now juggernaut single despite so many others contention that the song wasn’t hot. 

“Everybody around him was telling him don’t let it out. It was so funny and he was so serious about it, and then it exploded, and to everybody that was saying that [he shouldn’t release it],” said Doug. “Biz would make you feel it after. Biz was the kind of guy that would rub it in. [He’d say to the people that doubted him] ‘You remember what you told me, right? Yeah, you can come in. The concert’s sold out, but you can come in.’ Biz was that kind of guy, [but it shows that] honesty is power.”